Various strategies have been developed for generating oxygen in situ. The most common application is in wound healing, where oxygen has been generated via several methods from chemical to electrochemical to thermal et al.
There are simple oxygen reservoirs, which are limited in scope and duration due to the difficulty in implanting tanks that hold enough oxygen to sustain tissues longer than a few hours (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,000,403; 7,014,630; 4,969,881).
Electrochemical generation of oxygen has been patented for several applications, from wound healing (U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,570) to islet transplantation (U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,592). This method is complicated by the electronics required to generate oxygen. This limits the ability to implant the device and the longevity of oxygen generation. Both of these devices were patented in the 1990s, translation of this technology has proven difficult.
Several patents apply to the use of peroxide in materials (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,792,090; 6,767,342). Most use hydrogels or degradable materials, which lack the capacity to fully modulate oxygen release from short-term bursts to long-term, tempered release. Furthermore, most applications are for wound healing (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,792,090; 6,767,342) and not for extending applications where oxygen release must be sustained for a period of a week or more.